FucM gene deletion makes mice lesbian

Whatever else you might think about the study and how the Korean authors presented their results of a gene knock-out experiment in mice, you gotta love the fat that the gene is called FucM (encodes an ezyme called fucose mutarotase).

Pleiotropy comes from the Greek πλείων pleion, meaning "more", and τρέπειν trepein, meaning "to turn, to convert". It designates the occurrence of a single gene affecting multiple traits, and is a hugely important concept in evolutionary biology.

I'm a postdoc at UC Santa Barbara.

All Many aspects of evolution interest me, but my research focus is currently on microbial evolution, adaptive radiation, speciation, fitness landscapes, epistasis, and the influence of genetic architecture on adaptation and speciation.